Aphrodite vs Uranus

Recap

Of all the Gods and Goddesses, there’s no question that the best birth of all is that of Aphrodite. If you haven’t heard yet, it’s pretty rad. Uranus was a bad bad dude. He battered his wife. Harrassed his kids. And one of them, sick of all the abuse, cut his johnson off with a sickle. It fell to the sea, where it foamed up, and out sprouted Aphrodite. (Those Greeks had a healthy imagination.)

So last night’s game was really the battle of Uranus against his own junk.

And here from Uranus’ team, is Ethan Lacoe:

Before the game, our reigning MVP, Honey Badger, got the team fired up with this week’s Revenge of the Wolf video. Watch here as she takes revenge on both burnt rice and the construction site next door…

The game started with both teams holding and Aphrodite opting to use the off hand power a few points in. They converted and went up an early break. Aphro’s deep game was working as they were coming down almost every 50/50 disc. It was more like 80/20. Manos and Chris each made a few nice grabs. And Kirkham’s 50/50 percentage was 100/0. I’ve never played ultimate with him before so I didn’t know quite how dominant he is. Their women were also amazing, especially their sub Khumba. She’s a game influencer.

Uranus broke back and broke again to take half 8-7, but not before Max dislocated his finger diving for a disc. In the second half, Uranus went on a mini run to go up 12-10, including teleporting me out and KJ hucking it deep to Andy for the score. Aphro fought back to tie it at 12s. Uranus went up 13-12. Tied at 13s. Uranus up 14-13 and won 15-13. Hard fought game by both teams except for the 5+ uncontested drops by each team. That was bizarre.

Our cheer genius, Erin, came up with the longest, most epic cheer of the season…

We started off trading points until you got an itch

And called for the power of dominant hand switch

By switching from lefty to righty

The game turned for Aphrodite…

Fast forward to the second half, both teams scored lots of points

And there was at least one if not two injured joints

It was time… for… our powerful retort

We hucked it deep and scored, with a well-timed teleport

In the end, both powers worked

And you’ve got good spirit; you’re not jerks

Good game Aphrodite

With 1 game left to play, Uranus is now 3-5. Based on the standings before last night’s games, we’ve beat the 8th, 14th, and 16th ranked team in the standings and lost to 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th. So I feel like that puts us pretty solidly in the middle of the pack. Our final game is against the 6th place team, so our schedule was pretty difficult this year. For the tournament, we are losing an absurd 10 of 20 players on our roster, 9 of which are replaceable. This might hurt us due to lack of chemistry, or maybe it will be just what we need to be competitive.

Great video by Honey Badger. Take that construction workers!!! Or…. birds.

Also glad to see well written cheers. That’s a definite component that’s been lacking in Ultimate since the days of yore.

Uranus has a really good chance of finishing in the 8-9 range, which could mean a semi-finals match-up with Hestia, a match I’m most interested in watching. This is the first year of my 17 years in Summer League that I won’t be playing in the tournament. Very sad, but gives me the opportunity to watch some games.

And now for a point by point recap, here’s another injured player, Meg Hofner of Aphrodite:

It is game night. It started at 8:35. Red vs. Yellow.
Red loses the first game of change and starts on offense.
– Chris extends his body across the ground for the score. 1-0
– Yellow throws for a score. 1-1
– Chris throws to Justin for a score. 2-1
– Red uses off-hand capability and yellow turns. Chris overhead throws to Manos. 3-1
– Red uses area defense and Tidal defends the disc. There is a turn and then a drop. Andy on yellow throws to Erin for a score. 3-2
– Kumbha throws far to Chris who requests a timed break. A mishap and then Maggie on yellow throws to KChu for a score. 3-3
– Buster obtains an opposite side throw to Justin who throws far to Manos for a score. 4-3
– Red does area defense and obtains a turn by Tidal. There is another turn and another. Maggie achieves a defensive play in the scoring area, but the next thrower’s pass is hit right after the throw by hand. Kumbha overhead throws to Kirkham for a score. 5-3
– Someone on yellow throws to Maggie far for a score. 5-4
– Chris throws far to Kirkham who evaluates the disc position and accurately obtains it for a score. 6-4
– Red uses area defense which is curbed by a throw above the head. KJ throws to Honeybadger for a score. 6-5
– Kumbha throws a far throw to Celine for a score. 7-5
– Tidal obtains a defensive play with her hand. Kirkham throws too far for a runner. Ethan throws to Andrew for a score. 7-6
– Kirkham brings in a disc but then it is not a score. Yellow then misses a far throw with no defense. Chris is accosted in passing but is far too generous of heart to condemn. Yellow throws for a score. 7-7
– There is a running interference. There are some defensive plays, some of greater significance than others. Yellow scores. 7-8

Halftime. The dog gets to play.

– Turn. Turn. Turn. Almost turn. Turn. Turn. Foul. Justin throws to Manos for the score. 8-8
– There are a few reciprocated defensive events. Yellow scores. 8-9
– Andrew throws to Andy for the score. 8-10
– There is a debated forced removal of the disc. Yellow brings out their capability but it cannot be denied by two females and Andy scores. 8-11
– Kumbha overhead throws to Justin for a score. 9-11
– Red plays area defense and obtains a turn. Broccoli throws to Buster for a score. 10-11
– There are two turns. Kate catches a far throw and passes for a score. 10-12
– Yellow attempts area defense. Kumbha overhead throws to Kirkham who elevates his body significantly higher than the opposing player and obtains the disc. Kumbha throws to Chris for a score. 11-12
– Red plays area defense and obtains a turn. Justin throws to Kirkham for a score. 12-12
– There is an overhead throw for a score. 12-13
– Patrick scores as he falls into the scoring area. 13-13
– Red plays area defense but does not conduct a stable shift returning to regular patterns and yellow throws for score. 13-14
– Both teams anxiously stand on the line, waiting for the pull as they each determine the best strategic maneuver on this most-critical point. Game point for yellow and game over for red if that happens. Adding to the layers of anxiety is the impending darkness beset by the unknown exact time at which lights go out. It’s already after 10pm, so every second on the line gives hope to yellow and further dread to red. The signal is given: hand upstretched with the disc. And the point begins. Both teams race to begin only to find that more precious seconds are lost as the disc floats out of bounds – drawing a gasp has it chinks near the top of the fence but still lands on the track. Buster throws a quick fake from the brickmark but turns for the under pass to Kirkham for a 5 yard gain. Kirkham looks up field but sees no open options. Where are his cutters! He pivots and throws a low break back to Buster past a fleeting defender’s hand. KChu is on the mark and prevents the around and Buster must resort to an upfield attempt. Kirkham has button hooked his deep cut to turn under but Chris is also cutting under! This leads to some miscommunication as to who is the intended receiver of Buster’s throw! Chris’s trailing defender swoops in and d’s the now overthrown disc. He busts deep to capitalize but there is no yellow handler nearby to reward him. Honeybadger makes an attempt to go for the disc but runs past it as Maggie steps up and delivers a wide open upfield pass gaining 10 yards. Yellow is now on their own 30. Before the red mark can even set, the upfield throw is continued for another 15 yard gain with a sliding grab of this low-thrown disc. Yellow is in the redzone and ramping up. Patrick puts on a hard mark and stops first an easy handoff on the breakside and then a short upfield gainer. Yellow’s thrower sneaks way down for a low inside out pass, streaking it just over Justin’s poaching limbs to a horizontal endzone line cut and the score. Red turns away in defeat and exhaustion as yellow jumps around their receiver celebrating the score and the win. And the lights never turned off, illuminating this moment and its finality. 13-15
– Yellow provides a word of encouragement in the form of fast rhyming verse, much akin to what is hopefully their submitted synopsis of events.

Fantastic final point recap.

When you say a team uses “area defense”, you mean they poached?

And nice halftime report. Haha.

Aphrodite falls to 2-6. Begs the question, of the bottom four teams in the league, who would you least wanna face in the first round of the tourney? Demeter, Aphrodite, Apollo or Hephaestus?

Typical elitist attitude AND actions on display here: Throwing meager scraps from an ivory tower on high to feed; NAY, to MOCK! The blue collar laborers below. When the revolution comes, these displays of extravagance will be met with cruel redress equal to the malevolence witnessed here today.

I really enjoy Meg’s xkcd equivalent “thing explainer” where she uses simple words like “area defense” for “zone”. I have to point out one inaccuracy though – I have never thrown a hammer goal in a non-pickup game in my life, I believe Kirkham threw it instead.

I have a question for the masses – if you are cutting deep on a 50/50 and the defender and your feet get caught up, I know that some people call a foul on the defender, but is it a foul? This happened last night with KJ defending me. He called a foul on himself, and I appreciate the great spirit. I said it wasn’t a foul because there was no contact and we were just running side by side. What would you do in that situation? I wish that we had sent it back to the thrower instead which I think is the most fair solution.

side by side makes it very tough to blame 1 person or the other, sounds like equal blame and i dont know the relevant rule, but going back to the throw does sound most fair

if one is in front of the other, the onus 95% of the time is on the person behind not to touch the person in front, even if the person in front slows down. They person behind must slow down or change directions accordingly so as not to collide.